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SendGrid Fires Company Evangelist After Twitter Fracas

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Re: SendGrid Fires Company Evangelist After Twitter Fracas

#531

Post by anaheim »

cjbprime wrote: post #517
mc32 wrote: post #506

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would appear to be sexual. I'm not certain it needs to be sexist. For example, if we were to look at sexual repartee in France[1], one would notice sexuality in normal conversation. Among friends, friends of friends and friends and the significant others of friends, between bosses and staff, etc. It's imbued in their culture. [Some] Anglos tend to see this as archaic and sexist, Gallics see it as part of their cul…

> It would appear to be sexual. I'm not certain it needs to be sexist. This all seems like a waste of time. Here's how I think it should work: we ask women what they want ("hey, how about sexualized jokes at tech conferences?") and they tell us ("actually, we really hate it when you do that, probably much more than you realize") and then we stop, because we respect them and it turns out that making sex jokes wasn't a…

No deal. Why do you always have a need to "ask women what they want"? What about what men want?

Re: SendGrid Fires Company Evangelist After Twitter Fracas

#532

Post by mc32 »

cjbprime wrote: post #517
mc32 wrote: post #506

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would appear to be sexual. I'm not certain it needs to be sexist. For example, if we were to look at sexual repartee in France[1], one would notice sexuality in normal conversation. Among friends, friends of friends and friends and the significant others of friends, between bosses and staff, etc. It's imbued in their culture. [Some] Anglos tend to see this as archaic and sexist, Gallics see it as part of their cul…

> It would appear to be sexual. I'm not certain it needs to be sexist. This all seems like a waste of time. Here's how I think it should work: we ask women what they want ("hey, how about sexualized jokes at tech conferences?") and they tell us ("actually, we really hate it when you do that, probably much more than you realize") and then we stop, because we respect them and it turns out that making sex jokes wasn't a…

What if we polled all conferences for all language that some attending population feel is off the table? Should lawyers plan to vote to ban all lawyer jokes, even if said by insiders? What about bankers' conferences, maybe have them keep attendees from asking pointed questions about bailouts and fraud, etc?

I don't think people should be jocular and act like college fraternity members all their lives, but at the same time, I think, some times people become overprotective and over reactionary.

I think the minds of people who speak up are in the right place (want civility) but are somewhat in denial about what living in a society is (it does not mean we get to proscribe other's behaviors in minutiae).

What I mean is, I prefer most conversations to be free of vulgarity and expletives; however, on occasion, I think those same offenses can be a relief --it shows me, "You know what, society is still organic and it has its blemishes." It's not all purified and true.

Re: SendGrid Fires Company Evangelist After Twitter Fracas

#533

Post by ahoyhere »

JohnBooty wrote: post #395
rdtsc wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Okay, time to speak up! Hi, I'm a woman in tech Thank you for speaking up. I imagine this is not the easiest time to do so. > This doesn't portray women as badly as it portrays our entire tech culture badly. With such a large audience there will always be extreme responses on either side. There will (and have been) DDoS attacks, personal phone calls etc. I don't think those represent the community as much as it rep…

> She claims jokes were offending, she then posts > racists and penis jokes on her twitter account. > Not only does it smell of hypocrisy it smells of > maliciousness. Wow, so if your mother (or sister, or girlfriend, or wife, or daughter) has ever made an off-color joke in her life, that gives any man in the world the right to discuss penises with her in person? I mean, wow. That's what you're getting at. Twitter ha…

Ah, but they didn't make any comments to her, by her own admission.

Her story goes like this: She was sitting a row in front of them and they were having a private conversation with "dongle" and "forking" jokes.

It could have been me, making those jokes. Luckily nobody could fire me if somebody went nuts and posted my photo on the internet and tried to publicly shame me instead of asking me to stop doing it in her earshot. But perhaps more importantly, she probably wouldn't have said a thing, because I'm a woman. Who's been laughing over the word "dongle" since 1997.

Re: SendGrid Fires Company Evangelist After Twitter Fracas

#534

Post by shardling »

kanja wrote: post #474
scarmig wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who's being slandered, exactly? They did tell the sexist jokes, right?

Wrong. The joke was not sexist in any way - to call it so is a deliberate misrepresentation of the situation.

There are varying definitions of the word sexist that complicate the issue -- but here it doesn't matter!

Because Adria didn't call them sexist, certainly not in the twitter or blog posts I've read. She just said it made her uncomfortable.

Re: SendGrid Fires Company Evangelist After Twitter Fracas

#535

Post by [deleted] »

Aloisius wrote: post #95

I can't help but feel that if I, as a male, had posted the same tweet in response to some obnoxious guys behind me making situationally inappropriate comments and I was in her shoes as an evangelist at the time, no one would have batted an eye. Granted, I probably wouldn't have written a long blog post about it, but I've certainly talked to event organizers in the past about obnoxious people before and had them eject…

[deleted]

Re: SendGrid Fires Company Evangelist After Twitter Fracas

#536

Post by heili »

vertis wrote: post #206
blhack wrote: post #20

I really wish that this whole thing could have ended amicably (perhaps with Adria apologizing to the devs [by the way, the guy who was fired has already publicly apologized]). It's too bad that sendgrid had to fire her, I would never wish that somebody had their livlihood taken from them like that, but her job was to be a developer evangelist, which is a job she isn't realistically capable of performing anymore. I wo…

>> And honestly, she can't even function as a sort of "women's tech evangelist" anymore. Most [all, actually] of the women I've talked to about this are furious with her over how badly this portrays women. Needs references.

I think the 'You're not helping' meme is pretty damn apropos here and I am a software engineer who happens to be female.

I'm not furious at her, because she's not high enough on my radar to actually incite 'fury', but I do think she's an idiot and that her actions are likely to cause the exact opposite response than the one she claims to have intended.

Oh and I also don't really find my field to be inherently sexist just because it's mostly men and there are a lot of dick jokes. I happen to like it that way, and much like every guy with some chops I've always been treated with respect due to my own abilities.

They do expect me to actually have ability to be part of the group, but that's hardly unreasonable.

Re: SendGrid Fires Company Evangelist After Twitter Fracas

#537

Post by miql »

jamesaguilar wrote: post #263
jakejake wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the second post I've read recently about the US having no labor laws. Is that what everybody outside the US thinks? There's tons of laws and certain types of jobs are very difficult to fire people (unionized industries and govt. jobs). And there are laws and lawsuits for wrongful termination. Private companies still have labor laws they have to obey. Except for certain types of issues employees can be fired.…

If I had to guess, Adria at least has a pretty easily won harassment lawsuit against SendGrid for this. She was fired for speaking out about an instance of sexually inappropriate humor while she was acting in a professional capacity. Um? Even if you think the way she spoke out was not appropriate, you can't fire someone for this without running some serious risks of large lawsuits. For anyone who's curious, the texts…

It's retaliation if Adria filed a charge against SendGrid and then was fired.

"because they filed a charge of discrimination, because they complained to their employer or other covered entity about discrimination on the job, or because they participated in an employment discrimination proceeding"

I don't think this holds water.

Re: SendGrid Fires Company Evangelist After Twitter Fracas

#538

Post by cjbprime »

mc32 wrote: post #532
cjbprime wrote: post #517

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It would appear to be sexual. I'm not certain it needs to be sexist. This all seems like a waste of time. Here's how I think it should work: we ask women what they want ("hey, how about sexualized jokes at tech conferences?") and they tell us ("actually, we really hate it when you do that, probably much more than you realize") and then we stop, because we respect them and it turns out that making sex jokes wasn't a…

What if we polled all conferences for all language that some attending population feel is off the table? Should lawyers plan to vote to ban all lawyer jokes, even if said by insiders? What about bankers' conferences, maybe have them keep attendees from asking pointed questions about bailouts and fraud, etc? I don't think people should be jocular and act like college fraternity members all their lives, but at the same…

> What if we polled all conferences for all language that some attending population feel is off the table? Should lawyers plan to vote to ban all lawyer jokes, even if said by insiders?

The problem with slippery slope arguments is that they have a simple solution of stopping the slope, or at least considering each new idea separately: don't make sex jokes, but do (or not, whatever) make lawyer jokes.

I can think of at least four reasons that making sex jokes at tech conferences might be significantly more problematic than making lawyer jokes, such that we should think much worse of people who do the former. Honestly, I'm surprised you didn't think of these.

* Women are ~51% of the population and lawyers are ~0.3% of the population, so we might pay a little more attention to the common actions we perform that hurt women.

* We already have a problem with women feeling excluded and unwelcome from our tech communities, due to past and current sexism.

* Making sex jokes around women when they're surrounded by a large group of mostly-guys means they have to start worrying more about whether someone might assault or sexually harass them soon.

* Making sex jokes at a tech conference can encourage the objectifying idea that women are there for their sex appeal, and not their technical skill. This is a cultural idea that already exists, so it's easy to contribute to and requires significant effort to combat.

> in denial about what living in a society is (it does not mean we get to proscribe other's behaviors in minutiae).

Following a code of conduct that you'd previously agreed to follow seems exactly like what living in a society is to me.

Re: SendGrid Fires Company Evangelist After Twitter Fracas

#539

Post by MartinCron »

nilkn wrote: post #168
salman89 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I would feel really uncomfortable if I was in the same room as this person. What if I accidentally say something that she finds offensive? Am I next?" I'm not agreeing with anything Adria did, but the issue of being labeled as the "tattletale" probably plays a big part in most women's reluctance to report real harassment.

I'm honestly curious what this even has to do with women. That's what puzzles me most about this whole incident. Maybe I'm insensitive or ignorant. I'll admit it if that's the case and learn. Right now, though, I just don't get it. I just don't see how a dongle joke is sexist. It's anatomical . It might have some mild sexual undertone, but there's a huge difference between sexism and a sexual undertone--they aren't t…

Since you're honestly curious and not just trying to argue: pervasive anatomical/sexual jokes are sometimes (not always) part of a hyper-sexualized environment that some (not all) women find intimidating and alienating and is generally considered to be a form of harassment.

Re: SendGrid Fires Company Evangelist After Twitter Fracas

#540

Post by konstruktor »

gre wrote: post #477
Steuard wrote: post #466

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It's not sexist to make a jokes about the word "dongle" sounding like "dong". They sound pretty similar. It's not very funny unless you're bored stiff or in grade five, but nevertheless it's pretty harmless joke material, and it isn't sexism." I really have to disagree. Dick jokes are perceived to be almost exclusively a part of "guy culture". Want proof? Watch how fast a group of guys making those jokes suddenly cl…

Two things: she made a dick joke on twitter, and she plays cards against humanity which is nothing but "dick jokes with strangers".

She didn't just make a "dick joke" on twitter, but a joke about creating a hostile working environment for somebody she doesn't like (TSA-agents in this case) by the means of sexual harassment.
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